Ivan, Marifi, and Jerry sat in the ornate office of the former headmaster of Chadwick Manor School for Boys. Standing in the corner was Wendell Dee. Wendell was a fellow prepper who had a public access TV show he filmed from his basement. He was more of a hoarder and racist than a true prepper. Ivan had made his way to Wendell’s house when he left the group at the gas station.
The empty mansion had been in the process of being restored to serve as a kind of Plan B command center for Ivan before he ran low on cash. The school had long ago been shut down, leaving a barren and litter strewn facility which previously housed over one hundred boys when it functioned as a private boarding school. Ivan had purchased the large 19th century house from a state auction after the previous owner/headmaster of the school was put away in prison on seventy counts of child molestation and rape.
The former headmaster, who was a current inmate of Bergen County Prison, had actually attempted to sue Ivan from prison to try and regain control of the facility that had served as a chamber of horrors for many a young boy. Ivan had made a counter offer. He’d worked with Big V to get word to some of V’s associates who were also serving time in the same prison that they had a “tree jumper” in their midst, a term prisoners used for those inmates that preyed on children, a sin that was unforgivable to even the most sinful.
Ivan was not bothered any further by the old pedophile.
The abandoned house of horrors was perfectly situated for the current situation. The surrounding grounds were completely enclosed by a twelve foot high stone and cement wall. A large electronic iron gate blocked the only entrance, a driveway that led into a tight, uphill driveway leading to the front door. In the basement of the house was a fortified chamber with steel doors. It had been a sex and torture dungeon set up by the previous deviant owner, and Ivan had planned to convert it into a nuclear fallout shelter. On the grounds of the facility he had stockpiles of food, water, and stoves that would cook with the rays of the sun.
In the study of the former owner, Ivan sat behind an old oak wood desk, Marifi stood in the corner gazing out the window at the setting sun, and Jerry sat down across from them on an old chair in the corner. Ivan had dispatched the rest of his followers to try and find survivors and bring them to the school grounds. He felt that between Dan, Jerry, and Marifi, he had all the personal protection he needed.
Ivan flipped through the pages of Dr. Coleman’s journal again and then threw it on the desk.
“You want me to hang onto that?” Jerry offered.
Ivan looked over at him. He was tired and his head wound was still painful. “Hold onto it for whom, Gerald?”
“What are you talking about?” Jerry responded.
“Hold onto the notebook for whom, I asked. Hold onto it for safekeeping for me, or from me?”
“I’m not getting what you’re trying to say.” Jerry sat up in the chair, annoyed at the direction the conversation was taking.
Marifi turned her gaze from the window to the two men.
Ivan turned to Wendell. “Would you please excuse us? Could you check with the guard out front to see if he needs to be relieved?”
Wendell pulled out his silver handgun, dropped the clip to ensure it was still loaded, and then slammed it back into the chamber. He nodded and left the room.
Ivan rolled his eyes and let out a small sigh. “Jerry, for whom do you intend to hold onto this book? Do you want to hold onto it for me, as you feel you would be a better protector of it than I? Or do you desire to hold onto it to keep it from me, and deliver it to my father?”
Jerry raised his 6’2 frame up off of the chair and postured. “I don’t like the fucking tone of the question. Are you making some sort of accusation?”
Ivan remained seated, his tone and posture not changing from a monotone, almost disinterested intonation. “I am asking you who you are going to be loyal to. Me or my father, as I know you are beholden to him.”
“I am beholden to fucking no one asshole,” Jerry countered angrily. “Not you or your fucking dad.”
“Good,” said Ivan. “I wanted to ensure you were going to be okay should he spill your homo secret to the world.”
Jerry pulled out his pistol, his face turning red with rage and his eyes opened wide with both surprise and anger. He pointed the gun directly at Ivan’s face. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Ivan’s demeanor did not change an iota. “I’m sorry, did I use the wrong term? Queer? Gayboy? Sodomite? Which do you prefer?”
Jerry took a step toward Ivan. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Marifi reached for her spray can of “mace” containing the virus, but before her hand could remove the canister, Jerry whipped out a second firearm with his left hand and pointed it towards her.
“Make one more move, bitch, and I will waste you. You spray that shit at me, I will fucking put one between your eyes and one in your husband’s heart before your hand moves.”
“Gerald, I know women are not your cup of tea,” Ivan said, “but that is no way to speak to my wife. Now let’s refocus and get back to your faggotry.”
Jerry pointed both guns at Ivan and took a step closer to his target, his guns now only two feet from Ivan’s face. He knew Ivan was unstable and had been off his meds for a couple of days, but he was going too far.
“I’m sorry my terminology is so inelegant,” Ivan said. “What do you prefer? Pansy? Fairy? Pole-smoker?”
Jerry’s body was shaking but his hands stayed steady with his fingers on the triggers, his eyes wide and his breathing deep. He knew he was about to kill Ivan if one more word left his mouth.
Ivan leaned closer to the two barrels and said loudly, “Pillow biter! Is that it? Pillow biter?”
To Jerry’s surprise, an uncontrolled spit of laughter breached his lips. He lowered his arms and dropped his guns to the ground. He walked back over to the chair where he was sitting and collapsed into it, his head in his hands, as if his whole world had ended, and it was both a good and bad thing.
Marifi was confused but took her hands off of her weapons. She looked over at Ivan and in the Tagalog language asked, “Bakla?”
Ivan stood up and walked over to Jerry, placing his hand on his shoulder. Jerry was shaking his head, as if he was regretting not killing both Ivan and Marifi so everything could remain the same, but also with relief knowing that perhaps things did not need to remain the same.
“Listen, Gerald, I don’t give a shit what you do,” Ivan said. “You’re the toughest guy I know. You’re a killer. But I know what my father holds over your head, and I can’t afford to have someone who is compromised. It means he could get to you and order you to kill me at any time. I know if he does want me dead, he will send someone I trust.”
Marifi turned away from them to look out the window, but her mind remained on the conversation behind her.
“I expect my followers to start coming here for safety. They will be looking to me, but I have no leadership ability. I told them something like this would happen, and it did, so they will think I have answers, but I don’t. I don’t know how to help them survive or fight these creatures. You can do that. You can help keep them alive until we can figure a way out. I need you. Well, I don’t need you that way... you know I dig Asian chicks,” Ivan ended with an obvious joke which provoked another laugh from the warrior.
“Yeah man, you can trust me,” Jerry said.
A loud buzz sounded from the satellite phone on the desk. Jerry retrieved it, looked at the display. “It’s Dan.” Jerry answered the phone and the booming voice of Dan Sullivan could be heard blasting from the speakers.
“What’s up, douchebags? I’m back in Jersey. I miss anything?”
Ivan walked over to where Jerry was standing. He was scratching at his forearms as if there were ants crawling across them. It had been several days since he’d taken his SSRI drugs and he was getting symptomatic. Marifi had noticed how he was more unbalanced than usual and it concerned her.
Ivan leaned into the phone. “No, I was asking Gerald if he would stop hitting on my wife in front of me. I know this asshole has a girl in every port, but he can keep his clammy hands off my wife.”
Jerry smiled.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, brother?” Dan said. “I told you keep your mind off of pussy, and besides, if Ivan croaks, I got first shot at her. She don’t speak no fucking English, near perfect woman.” Dan chortled. “Listen, whackjob,” Dan continued, referring to Ivan, “I’m tracking Pat’s signal and while I told that asshole to stay here on the beach at Cape May, it says he’s not far from Jerry’s signal. Is he with you?”
“Negative,” Jerry said and stood up. “I am going outside for a smoke and to check the perimeter.”
“Yeah, you go do that,” Dan’s voice responded mockingly. “Go check the perimeter, and check your shorts while you’re at it, ‘cause I bet you shit your pants today without me around save your ass,” Dan continued on in full ball-busting momentum. Even the apocalypse did not change the Sullivans.
Jerry handed off the phone to Ivan and opened the office door, just as Wendell was about to knock to re-enter. Jerry wondered if he had been there the whole time listening in. They each gave the other the stink eye as they passed.
Ivan took the sat-phone. “Daniel, stay at the beach for now, guard the sub. If Patrick is coming here, we will need to get to you anyway. Hold tight and I will be back in touch within the hour.”
“Yeah okay, Dan said. “Hey, when I dropped those kids off, that piece of shit Gordon was there. He doesn’t go anywhere without your old man telling him what to do. He said something about a plan. You know something you’re not telling me? I swear I will rip your fucking head off if you are up to some bullshit!”
“One hour, Daniel.” Ivan disconnected the call.
Wendell sat down across from Ivan. Wendell had been, for lack of a better term, a frienemy. Ivan did not particularly like the guy, but he was well connected in the prepper community and drove a lot of clientele Ivan’s way. He broadcast a bad local access TV show out of his basement and wrote non-stop on blogs, but he wanted a radio show to follow Ivan’s and a bigger piece of the cut from referrals to Ivan’s bomb shelters and survival goods.
Wendell cleared his throat. “Ivan, can I speak with you?”
“Sure,” Ivan responded and rubbed at his wounded head. His headache was not relenting.
Wendell looked over at Marifi; not the way he usually did, but in a way that indicated to her he wanted her to leave.
Ivan also looked at Marifi. “Sweetie, could you please excuse us?”
She shot Wendell a death glare and left the room.
“Your old man is helping that new government agency,” Wendell started, “with is not such a bad thing.”
Ivan raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I know about that. You did not think anyone else knew what was happening here, but I do. The Agency hired your old man to solve the ultimate riddle,” said Wendell. “How can the government get the population to give up their rights, forgo elections, clear out the dead wood and become compliant little producers again?
“Well, first thing is, you have to eliminate everyone on the dole. How? Give them the one thing they can’t live without: food. Free food. Once they eat it, they go friggen nuts and start eating each other. Would anyone really notice? They kill each other every night, we’re just taking the guns out of their hands and giving them a knife and fork to wipe each other out.
“They’re already leaches sucking this country dry. They wanted free food, and once they eat it, they will be surrounded by free food, all the food they can eat.”
“You’re on crack, you know that, Wendell?” Ivan snapped but was beginning to squirm a bit in his seat.
“You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Ivan.”
Gunshots rang out in front of the house. Ivan began to stand up, but Wendell stood first, pointing his gun at Ivan.
“Whoooooaa, slow down there, pal. Sit right down. That’s just some friends I am expecting.”
Ivan was shocked. How could this idiot get the drop on him? He sat back down uneasily in his chair.
“You and me, we were both swapping emails about how pissed we were about those Occupy hippies and the IRS and the NSA,” Wendell droned. “So I know you and I are simpatico here.”
“We’re nothing alike,” Ivan countered.
“Sure we are, you just can’t see yourself for what you really are,” Wendell sneered. “Those protesters always shouting about the 1% and having Eat the Rich bumper stickers on their stupid hybrid cars? Well now they can eat each other. Who cares? We let them kill each other for a while, then when they have thinned out their own ranks, we go in and clean up the mess and rebuild. It’s the perfect plan. The poor and unemployed eat each other, the wetbacks from South America fill their ranks. Those people and are much more amenable to working for five dollars an hour and are too clueless to worry about anything like political elections or unionizing. And by bringing in only the women and children, and keeping the adult males out, we can keep them from overbreeding once they get here.”
Wendell was referring to a long standing yet only recently exploited loophole in the immigration code that stated any child who managed to make their way into the United States from a non-contiguous country would be allowed to stay. Some came with their mothers, who were also allowed to stay. All men over the age of 18 were immediately deported. While the law had been on the books for years, it was only about six months before that hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, of women and children began flooding across the border. No one knew why it began all of a sudden, but Max Gold had been traveling frequently to Central and South America in the weeks prior. When the government refused to halt the flow, it sparked the Texas succession movement, which now occupied the attention of the country.
“And what about the rest of the country?” Wendell continued. “They are so scared shitless seeing zombies running around the streets, they turn to the government to save them from being eaten alive. People will give up anything to feel safe. Sure, some of those rich bastards will bitch about not getting to vote anymore, but living in a dictatorship is a small price to pay when you can manufacture goods with generational cheap labor.
“Goods and services will be so cheap, it will make Walmart look like Macy’s. We will overtake those Chinks in a decade. Soon they will be buying all their poorly made crap from us.
“But your old man planned a bait and switch and they found out, now it’s time to pay the piper. You see, your old man’s connections can’t help him out this time. The military and the government have turned their backs on him. Fair-weather friends, huh? The Agency figured out what your old man was planning. They realized he was not going to follow the plan and unleash this plague into the populace, he was going to try and set up his own shadow government, maybe even try a coup and replace the current government.”
More shots rang out from outdoors.
“Your old man really had the right idea on how to turn this country around,” Wendell said. “Shame he won’t live to see it.”